Tangled Up in Blue

by Stephen O'Donnell

  In fact, many years later, Brand, who had joined Rangers as a teenager and played for the club for twelve years, did return to Ibrox as a matchday host for corporate clients in the club’s latterday hospitality suites. Nevertheless, Scot Symon’s biographer, David Leggat, maintained that even after such a long interval many fans of a certain age were still angry at Brand’s alleged ‘bitter betrayal’ of the Ibrox code of conduct, and while Leggat himself was prepared to be magnanimous and accept the former idol’s rehabilitation into the Ibrox fold, interestingly this forgiveness did not come because Leggat believed, after all this time and with the benefit of hindsight, that Brand had done the right thing in calling out Rangers over the club’s anti-Catholicism and other arcane practices, but rather because, ‘When he said what he did, Ralph Brand was just having a bad day.’ A bad month more like, as Brand’s excruciating series of articles, much to Rangers’ embarrassment, extended over six editions of the newspaper, from late September through until the end of October 1965.

  A few years later, in 1968, Ibrox vice-chairman Matt Taylor was asked about the club’s Protestants-only policy while Rangers were on a tour of North America. ‘It is part of our tradition. We were founded in 1873 as a Presbyterian Boys’ Club,’ Taylor stated, inaccurately on both counts. ‘To change now would lose us considerable support.’

  The candour of this reply is revealing, with the directors clearly seeing the need to maintain the club’s sectarian image in order to keep the fans coming through the turnstiles. But while Taylor seemed happy to ascribe the anti-Catholicism at Rangers to the club’s supporters, any suggestion that the problem was limited merely to the stands at Ibrox was called into question when, in May 1973, chairman John Lawrence, who in one of his first acts as a director nearly 20 years earlier had helped to coax the ailing manager Bill Struth into belated retirement, was himself finally standing down from the club’s board, amid his own health problems.

  Lawrence’s successor was to be David Hope, who had built up the Rangers Pools, founded in 1964, and the Rangers Social Club, both of which had grown into extremely successful commercial operations. These ventures contributed millions of pounds over the years to the Rangers Development Fund, money that was later put to use in the rebuilding of Ibrox Park as a modern all-seater arena. But Hope had married a Catholic some 43 years earlier, and although his wife had died 15 years previously, he lasted only 17 minutes in the chairman’s seat and two years later he was no longer on the board at all. Amid scurrilous rumours put about by Taylor, the club’s resentful vice-chairman, that Hope himself had converted to the Roman faith, Lawrence blinked and was immediately reinstated as chairman at a hastily reconvened meeting. Rangers Football Club was still riddled with religious bigotry all the way from the fans right through to the boardroom by the 1970s.

  For the most part, however, there seemed to exist a cosy conspiracy of silence between the club, the football authorities and the press, which had allowed the problem to fester and continue to the point where the situation became almost universally accepted as the norm. As so often with taboo subjects, when the first, occasional mentions begin to filter down into popular culture, comedy is usually the vehicle used to tiptoe on to such difficult terrain. Consider the following exchange between a security guard and one of the main protagonists from the iconic 70s TV show The Likely Lads: ‘Careful how you go tonight, there’s been a match.’ ‘Aye, I know. A friendly with Rangers.’ ‘There’s no such thing as a friendly with Rangers, they’ll be on the rampage.’ ‘Aye, hooligans.’

  This was a gratuitous reference to the plummeting image of the Glasgow club and its supporters thrown into the script of a popular programme and broadcast UK-wide without any dramatic justification in terms of plot or characterisation. Even in an era becoming increasingly notorious for football hooliganism, Rangers, after a succession of high-profile and shocking incidents, were acquiring a particularly poor reputation, which the club was constantly at pains to try and redeem.

  Similarly in Porridge, another sitcom scripted by the successful comedy writing partnership of Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, Ronnie Barker’s Fletcher tries to bait his adversary, Scottish prison officer Mr MacKay, in the following way, ‘He’s a strict Glasgow Presbyterian, you know. Sex is only allowed up there when Rangers beat Celtic.’ Later, within Scotland, the comedy sketch show Scotch and Wry ventured into similar territory with a scene starring Rikki Fulton and a young Gerard Kelly, in which the Rangers manager (Fulton) unwittingly signs a terrific young talent, a player called Brendan O’Malley, who, the audience are told, scored seven goals for his team in the first half, but missed the second half because he ‘had to go to Mass’. Few viewers will forget Fulton’s stunned reaction to this revelation only seconds after the boy has signed a five-year contract!

  In 1982, a play called The Bigot, by James Barclay, was produced at the Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow. Fanatical Rangers man Andra Thomson is stunned when his daughter’s fiancé turns up at his house in full Celtic regalia to meet his future father-in-law. Things become even worse for the self-styled eponymous bigot when his son enters the priesthood! There are numerous other examples of the twin issues of hooliganism and bigotry at Ibrox entering popular culture: an exchange from an episode of the 70s police drama The Sweeney. ‘GBH, assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder,’ whereupon Dennis Waterman’s Detective Sergeant George Carter wonders, ‘What are they, Rangers supporters?’ In a more recent reference, in the BBC satirical comedy The Thick Of It, Rangers fans are compared to a baying mob of journalists, who are ‘about to eat their own cocks’.

  Back in the real world, the Rangers directors, misinformed about the club’s early history and with a vigilant eye on the takings at the gate, were still persisting with the ‘Presbyterian Boys’ Club’ approach. As Celtic stepped out of the shadows and began to dominate Scottish football in the late ’60s, the growing sense of disapproval of their Ibrox neighbours started to creep into the national coverage of the game, particularly after the disgraceful scenes witnessed at the Fairs Cup defeat in Newcastle, in May 1969. In reference to the continuing absence of Catholics in the Rangers playing squad, veteran tabloid journalist Alex Cameron, writing in the Daily Record, called for ‘a vigorous clean-out of inbred bigotry which coincidence no longer begins to explain or excuse’.

  Yet the club continued to deny that any such policy even existed. A few years later, after more trouble at the friendly against Aston Villa in Birmingham, general manager Willie Waddell, in response to a nationwide wave of indignation, announced, ‘We are determined to end Rangers’ image as a sectarian club… no religious barriers will be put up by this club regarding the signing of players.’ It was one of the first public references to a ‘sectarian’ agenda at Ibrox and there was widespread jubilation and hope among the wider community that Rangers might eventually, in the not too distant future, sign a Catholic football player.

  But as the years went by and no Catholic player appeared in light blue, perhaps as a result of the lack of leadership and continued in-fighting in the Ibrox boardroom, these hopes were dashed. In his book Glasgow’s Giants, Bill Murray seemed to hit the nail on the head when he observed of Rangers’ habitually empty promises, ‘To the media and the public at large these statements were taken with large spoonfuls of scepticism. They had heard it all before: they were a necessary disclaimer to keep any investigators from FIFA at bay. A sop to the media and a wink to their fans who knew that everything would continue to be as it should be at Ibrox.’ Even Walker and Esplin concede of Waddell’s statement in The Official Biography of Rangers, ‘In retrospect, this appears to have been a stalling tactic to alleviate the intense pressure the club was then under.’

  In 1978, the Church of Scotland decided that it would attempt to intervene in the ongoing situation at Ibrox. The Bush, a pamphlet produced by the Kirk’s Glasgow Presbytery, published a strong editorial under the heading ‘The Blue Barrier’, which called for an end to the exclusionary policy. It read,
‘“Are you a Catholic?” That’s the big disqualifying question to an applicant for any job at Ibrox. Four years ago this Presbytery condemned that sectarianism. Rangers said it didn’t exist. Two years later they changed their non-existent policy. “We’ll sign a Catholic,” said their general manager. Two weeks ago, they still hadn’t. Nor are they likely to. Blind prejudice is no respecter of football skills alone.

  ‘Over the summer we investigated the Ibrox situation. We unearthed stories of people applying for advertised jobs who were asked their religion as almost the first question. We have a quote from a director that boldly states why Catholics should not play for Rangers. We looked at the careers of some players who were unfortunate enough to fall in love with Catholic girls… And we conclude that far from changing anything with a new policy, Rangers Football Club is more anti-Catholic than it ever was.’

  This was as bold a step as it sounds from the Kirk, which had clearly indulged in a fair amount of soul-searching since the days of the infamous ‘Report’ back in the early 1920s. Reverend Donald MacDonald, one of the ministers responsible for the editorial, later explained that he hoped the Church’s intervention would have a positive, ameliorating effect on the wider social problem, and in particular on the issue of segregated sport at Ibrox. Sadly though, it didn’t end well for The Bush. There was no wider support in the community and successive parishes cancelled their bulk orders of the pamphlet. Circulation plummeted, it became uneconomic and before long The Bush ceased publication.

  One such player at Ibrox around this time who was ‘unfortunate enough to fall in love’ with a Catholic girl was forward Graham Fyfe, who claimed that, despite his wife effectively renouncing her faith and their marriage taking place in the Church of Scotland, he nevertheless felt the need to leave Ibrox in 1980, after being questioned by the club’s management about his wedding arrangements and his private life in general. Fyfe’s allegation was contested by other players at the time who had also married Catholic women, such as Bobby Russell and Derek Johnstone, both of whom remained at the club into the 1980s.

  By 1982, the situation with unsuitable brides at Ibrox appeared to have been cleared up once and for all, when Rangers player Gordon Dalziel announced his engagement to a Catholic girl. The player, who left Rangers a year later for footballing reasons (he wasn’t very good), told the press at the time, ‘I have already had the all-clear at Ibrox. It will not make any difference. I’m not going to get married in the chapel or anything like that… There should be no trouble at Ibrox. I don’t see how there can be. Bobby Russell is already married to a Catholic and his career has not been affected.’ Manager John Greig added to the general tone of reassurance, when he informed the media, ‘It doesn’t matter who he is marrying. It doesn’t matter to me and it doesn’t matter to Rangers. Bobby Russell’s been married to a Catholic for years. Gordon Dalziel has a right to marry who he wants.’

  Despite such worthy assurances however, the stench of religious bigotry continued to pervade Ibrox and following their unsuccessful intervention a few years earlier, the Church of Scotland returned to the issue again in 1980 after the violent scenes witnessed around the world following Celtic’s 1-0 victory over Rangers in the Scottish Cup Final. The Kirk’s General Assembly proposed a motion calling on Rangers to end their exclusionary employment practices and publicly distance themselves from such discrimination, which was passed by a majority of 200. But of the 1,250 commissioners, 400 had held their noses and abstained, so the result was seen as ambiguous and the expected impact failed to materialise. Nevertheless, the General Assembly report of the same year noted, ‘Tensions would be eased if all clubs, and Rangers FC in particular, would publicly disclaim sectarian bias in management and team structure, and through integrated team selection, publicly prove that sectarianism has no place in Scottish sport.’

  The Church’s willingness to take such a risk in alienating itself from a section of its own flock shows what an embarrassment Rangers had become to the Presbyterian middle classes by this time and what a bad advert for Scottish Protestantism they were now considered to be. Even the Orange Order felt the need to weigh in with its own condemnation of fans’ behaviour and to disassociate themselves from Rangers supporters. ‘The same examples of low animal life who force their support on Glasgow Rangers are one and the same with the foulmouthed drunks who cause us great embarrassment every July when they turn up to “support” our annual rallies,’ the Order harrumphed, following the Birmingham riot in 1976.

  Meanwhile Celtic, as a result of a decision taken by the club’s directors back in the 19th century and following a policy seemingly pursued by every other known sporting institution in the world, continued to select players irrespective of their religious background. Non-Catholics at the Parkhead club in the 1970s included right-back Danny McGrain and forward Kenny Dalglish, whose father had been a regular at Ibrox while Dalglish was growing up. The striker describes his father’s reaction to his son joining Celtic, ‘Although he was a Rangers supporter, he wasn’t bigoted in any way. Celtic had just won the European Cup and he told me, if you want to learn how to play football, then that’s the place to go.’

  McGrain, ludicrously, was overlooked by a Rangers scout, who, upon inquiring about the player, incorrectly assumed that a boy named Daniel Fergus McGrain had to be from a Catholic background, and lost interest. It was a costly mistake; McGrain went on to play 663 times for Celtic between 1970 and 1987, and he remains at the club to this day in a coaching capacity. McGrain also made 62 appearances for Scotland, including captaining the national side at the 1982 World Cup, and in 2004 he was one of the original inductees into the Scottish Football Hall of Fame.

  Celtic’s assistant manager at the time, Sean Fallon, rather impishly suggested that they would sometimes use Rangers’ policy to their advantage, noting that if the club was looking at two youngsters of equal ability, one from a Catholic background, another Protestant, Celtic would often take the non-Catholic player, because they knew that the other lad would not end up at Rangers. ‘So we win 2-0,’ Fallon concluded smugly. The reality was rather more prosaic, but Jock Stein later admitted to Graeme Souness that Rangers’ policy at least allowed Celtic to deliberate longer over the Catholic youngsters, whereas they were in a rush to tie up the likes of Dalglish and McGrain in order to prevent them from escaping to Ibrox. Souness, who played under Stein for Scotland over several years, made a mental note of his former boss’s confession and stored it away for future use.

  By the time that Jock Wallace returned to manage Rangers for a second time in November 1983, it was clear that the growing controversy surrounding the exclusionary employment policy, unofficial or otherwise, was not going to go away. On the day of his reappointment, Wallace emerged from the stadium on to Copland Road and told the waiting media, ‘I have been told by the board that I have complete control over who I select, and I will sign players on ability. Religion will not come into it.’ He then turned on his heels and departed without taking further questions.

  A few days later, when he was asked explicitly about the signing policy, Wallace replied, ‘To listen to some people you’d think all the problems of Rangers could be solved at a stroke – by signing a player who is Catholic. But for me, that’s not a priority… I have signed many Roman Catholics – and released a few. When I was with Leicester I also signed several coloured players – and freed some of them too. It’s ironic that in my last spell with Rangers, when we were winning the occasional Treble the subject of signing Catholics seldom came up, but now that the club is going through a difficult spell, everyone is jumping on that particular bandwagon. It has been turned into a campaign and exploited by people who should know better.’

  Wallace, it seemed, having returned to his ‘dream job’, was still living out his schoolboy fantasy as manager of his favourite team. ‘I’ve always been a Rangers fan,’ he announced after the first game of his second spell in charge at Ibrox, a 3-0 defeat to Aberdeen at Pittodrie, ‘ever since I was a
lad of nine and they came through to play near my home on the east coast. The team that made me a Rangers fan for life still trips off the tongue: Brown, Young, Shaw, McColl, Woodburn, Cox, Waddell, Gillick, Thornton, Duncanson and Caskie,’ he said, rattling off Struth’s team from the immediate post-war period. On that first trip up to Pittodrie, Wallace invited his agent Bill McMurdo, whom he had dubbed ‘Agent Orange’ because of his Rangers allegiances and his political views, on to the team bus. A founder member of the Scottish Unionist Party and an acknowledged Orangeman and Freemason, McMurdo had turned his Uddingston home into a Rangers shrine, naming it ‘Ibrox’ and decking it out in the club’s colours of red, white and blue.

  On the journey north, McMurdo provided Wallace with a cassette so that he could play Rangers songs over the speaker system and the manager encouraged his players to join in the singing of ‘No Surrender’. McMurdo later confided, ‘Jock acted as compere and… those who didn’t know the words were urged to learn them for the next away game. [Ulsterman] Jimmy Nicholl knew the words inside out and Jock said to him, “Brilliant Jimmy, you know all the words, you’re the captain today!”’

  It’s an apocryphal story; Nicholl had only just arrived at the club, having been signed by John Greig in his final days in charge at Ibrox, and the Irishman didn’t in fact captain the side that day. But nevertheless, it’s easy to see how a Catholic player might have struggled to flourish in such an environment and, needless to say, by the time Wallace was sacked in April 1986, there was still scant sign of a Catholic football player at Rangers, with only youngster John Spencer having made a handful of first team appearances for the Ibrox club.